Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

After a dismal 2020 and partial 2021 the last two years have been good to great.

I’m getting remarried so this year is pretty classic for me

I raise a Jasmine in your honor!

aw congrats DJP!

the last year has felt very discomfiting in kinda specific ways, mostly owing to larger world events. simultaneously, it’s also been a great year for me personally (financially/career/hobbywise). idk it’s a lot to sit with.

Congrats DJP!

I hear that DR, the best years I've had (2017ish-2020) coincided with a lot of dreadful things happening.

Love to the throuple, a soul killing job is not an easy thing to fix but I sincelrely hope the stressors ease up soon. and agreed, pride is a non-thing this year, not that I was ever way into pride it's fallen off my gaydar (sorry) completely

I've never been to a Pride parade.

I've been to a couple but the last one was oppressively corporate, so I'm done (at least, as long as I'm in nye)

weho pride was last weekend, forewent it in order to cook and go record shopping instead (not that i ever go to WP anyway). this weekend is all the gay events that i actually enjoy going to (eg dyke day, which is the best official pride event by light years). i’m also DJing a not-gay event at the italian club on friday and going to a friend’s film screening on sunday. donna is BUSY yall

hope you and the fellas are less stressed soon map <3

why don't y'all come over this Saturday. We'll use the pool, fire up the grill, pass some joints.

aw thanks dr glad to hear things are going well - sending my love to you and yours. thank you deflatormouse! i'm taking on the wise words of sade, "keep looking".

congratsssss djp!!!

i hope hot dogs are on the menu and pools always need usin' ;) i've been taking a break from weed because job stuff. it's been a good thing but i miss getting high in the great outdoors.

congrats DJP!

have you been out with that girl again, the one with the antique sourdough starter? :D

― Deflatormouse

no but mostly for scheduling reasons. life happens, and i'm taking it slow. related:

this year has been one of the hardest i've ever had. covid was a breeze compared to this. anyone else feel that at all?

― he/him hoo-hah (map)

i don't know. yes. no. maybe.

last year i hit bottom. i haven't seen bojack horseman - i feel like it would hit too hard, emotionally - but someone did share the last scene, where bojack says "well life sucks and then you die", and then the other character "sometimes. sometimes life sucks and then you keep living", and then the show ends, and oof i feel that one in my bones.

i haven't done the fucked up shit bojack seems to have done. i've made some mistakes and faced consequences for them. maybe those consequences were disproportionate, maybe they weren't. it doesn't matter. late '22 through '23, shit just fell apart. '24? i keep living. things haven't gotten better particularly but they haven't gotten worse, and to me that's good. things can always get worse. complaining about being "old", a lot of it is just that i look at myself and i'm _weathered_. i got lots of health problems and i'm not great at taking care of them, and because of that i'm at higher risk of dying at a younger age than people who aren't queer. that's what the demographic data shows, that's what i see in queer people who die of "natural causes", particularly gender non-conforming people. yesterday i realized that this lady i know who looks pretty old is actually younger than me. a lot of it is that her camera is a potato but a lot of it is that like me, she's _weathered_.

i have a hard time getting out and relating to people on a more than a superficial level because when i try to do that i get overwhelmingly sad and i want to cry. to me, having healthy relationships means being able to talk about my emotions with other people without breaking down into tears. i'm not there and i don't know how to get there. i'm working hard to show compassion towards myself and to take care of myself. radical acceptance, though, means accepting that my life kinda sucks. i've had to deal with shit that a lot of other people haven't had to deal with. i have lots of privilege as well, but that doesn't erase the fact that i've dealt with a lot of shit and am dealing with a lot of shit on an ongoing basis.

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random anecdote. yesterday my QPP took me out to fedex so i could print a label and return a work laptop. there were two printers i could use to print stuff on and they were both occupied by people doing very large printing projects. i just had one page to print, but because of the way the systems are programmed neither of them could interrupt their processes to let me print One Page, or rather, it would financially disadvantage them to do so. in fact, due to corporate policy, nobody in the store had the ability to get my prepaid return label printed, so me and my QPP wound up waiting an hour for one of the two of them to be finished.

it's one of those inconveniences that would've really upset me pre-transition, because My Time Is Important or whatever. and it _is_ but i've learned to make the most of whatever situation i find myself in. i wasn't inclined to go off driving to other fedex shipping locations in the hope that one of them would have a shorter line for the printer. there was nothing i was doing that was genuinely so important that i couldn't wait there for as long as it took. so i just stood there pleasantly chatting with my QPP about our shared interests, which was mostly gay leftism. we weren't rude or offensive about it, we didn't curse or talk about explicit topics. we were just there conspicuously being queer leftists. i mean the fact that we were waiting an hour to get one piece of paper printed, that's not about me personally, nor is it a random one-off event. to me, that's indicative of a systemic failure of capitalism. but anyway, it felt good to be able to do that, to be able to respond to that inconvenience in a fundamentally emotionally healthy and queer way. and in a way where we were also visibly queer, in a way that reinforced the ways in which our queerness and our leftism are not coincidentally related. that was good.

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my work interview for pride is coming out (lol) soon. i'm kinda nervous. one never knows, you know, how people wind up taking it, if people are hostile about it. i don't know that i've _ever_ been as visible as cis people as i'm going to be. visibility is a double-edged sword. you get too visible and people go after you, particularly if someone's openly trans right now. being visible out on the street or in a fedex store is one thing. where i live it's not that much of a risk. this, though, this is different. i'm really glad to have the opportunity to do it - it's something i've been wanting to be able to do for years - but it's scary!

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pride around here is mostly next month. the middle of july isn't the _most_ amenable weather for pride but fuck it, pride came out of a long hot summer. i've long ago given up on the idea of pride being something _fun_ and _celebratory_. it's mostly a matter for showing up for me. being visible and present. i'm not against it but i'm really struggling a lot with internalized shame right now - i'm not really in the mindset for fully living out pride. just showing up even when i don't _feel_ super proud... to me, that's about the most important thing i can think of.

Thank you, everyone. The past few years have been a journey tbh, much more so than I would have expected

Wow DJP that is amazing news I’m so so happy for you!!

congrats DJP!

that's amazing news DJP, hope it's a wonderful day

i posted in the lisbon thread but i also want to post in here that my bf & i are gonna be in lisbon for 3 days in june, i'm curious if anyone has gay specific recs ... beaches, bars, clubs, parties, bookstores, spas, cruisey spots etc

DJ!!!! amazing - how beautiful for you. i hope it is a joyous and serene event!

kate what is this work interview??

jordan i do not but reminds me that i would still love a hang with you one of these days!! r u still in nyc?

yes babe and loving it!!

yessss. i just moved to the southern tip of prospect park on the east side - will reach out for a plan!

i think i've been happier this year than i have been in a long while. i'm really enjoying new york. i'm biking more than i ever have in my life. my bf & i have been in the process of figuring a lot out about our relationship, what exactly our individual wants and needs really are. i think an aspect of a relationship growing naturally and wonderfully over time is you may not often stop and think about or articulate exactly what you want the relationship to be, what kind of arrangement actually makes you happy, how exactly you picture the other person being in your life. we're trying to be more intentional now. it's been weird at times, confusing, existentially stressful; also freeing, fun, experimental. i'm having more sex than i ever have in my life by far. i'm in the best shape of my life easily. building a more specific relationship is intellectually stimulating at the same time as it is emotionally turbulent. we have a community that we really value. the weather here has been really nice lately. getting another office job kinda turned everything around for me. i like being in manhattan a lot. i need to feel new york.

this is such an amazing update jordan. i similarly am having a fruitful feeling about this year, truly amazing to "feel new york" in a new way as you say. getting a new job has also turned everything around for me and i love to hear i'm not alone! here's to getting a lot done this year!!

kate what is this work interview??

― Swen

this might sound silly but i kinda don't want to give too much detail about it, not because it's important or a big deal or anything like that but because this is a publicly accessible site and i don't want to do anything that might make it easier for someone to doxx me. i'm probably being overly cautious! i wish i felt comfortable talking about it more :(

funnily enough i just found that one of the discord servers i'm on is being targeted by transphobic trolls. the server admin has set up a lot of safeguards to prevent the trolls from being able to do much, but it does take work to mitigate the risk to users.

being trans is kinda wild, you gotta do opsec for doing things like "going to brunch"

like, it's _probably_ fine? but you can't just take it for granted the way i did in the Before Time

Sharing happiness always puts me in a strange position, but I love y'all and I gotta say it's been a great couple years. I write every day, I'm working on longform fiction, and I'm getting a work promotion. I'm sorry if this sounds smug or something

if i envy other people being happy (and i do sometimes, but not now), i mean, that's on me. i think it's great when people get to celebrate themselves! one of the things i hear talked about a lot and practiced less often is trans joy, and like any kinda queer joy there is, i love that

Sharing happiness always puts me in a strange position, but I love y'all and I gotta say it's been a great couple years. I write every day, I'm working on longform fiction, and I'm getting a work promotion. I'm sorry if this sounds smug or something

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:27 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

fuck off and die! j/k i love you alfred, glad these things are happening for you

i should be having the best year of my life but breaking my toe and then getting covid right after it healed really threw me off!!! also i can't tell if my album is good or sucks (it's good). i just can't seem to just let good things happen to me or give myself a break. but i'll get over it!!!!

i'm glad to hear that so many are having (mostly) good years :)

love you all

Love that post J0rdan. I grew up here and find Manhattan and NYC to be oppressively stressful, for the most part, with occasional serendipitous magic
I'm always amazed how others are able to just love New York, all out.

Alfred I'm really happy for you! Didn't know you wrote fiction, I actually looked for you in that section of Borders to no avail

ivy your band is great live and if your album can live up to that it must be great, I'm stoked to give it a spin soon

anhedonia set in these last couple of years, before that I was soaring. looking for my next thing, my new thing. just gotta ride it out in the meantime.

Despite everything, my year is going relatively well. I am also in the best shape of my life, I work with several communities I value, and things with the husband are great. Yesterday was his birthday and after some logistical errands in the morning, we went climbing then had delicious Vietnamese food, then came home and fucked and watched a horrible, horrible film that we both loved because it was so stupid

I am in the worst shape of my life— not exactly true, I’m jogging again, so I’m in better shape than I was a year ago. What do you guys do to get into “good shape”? My brain and body find the creative state quite naturally and I’m always making things, but I can’t get on a good exercise regimen. I have a handful of apps and none of them work. Saving for a down payment so can’t afford a trainer

Had a brilliant evening last night with my younger sibling. They started T a year ago and haven’t seen them since that happened, they look fucking amazing and are positively glowing with happiness. We had DUMPLINGS! and we talked about Albini, the Darian Gap, encampments and our dogs

DUMPLINGS! should be part of any diet, always.

I awaken around 5:15 a.m. most mornings, do sit-ups and curls, and take a five-mile walk. My mind is crystalline by the time I get back -- which I have just done.

Hm that does sound healthier than my wake-up: coffee cigarettes and free writing

Coffee and writing in there too.

i have a yoga routine i work through 3x every other day, modified stuff from the ashtanga primary series that i picked up from a flow class i took for several years. don't know what i'd do without it and it's wild how transformational it's been for me. i'm also a gym rat - bodybuilding split with some heavy powerlifting basics. also i run. i'm a slow runner (short legs + heavy) and i don't go far but the endorphins are a big deal for me.

i know no one asked but i think the challenge with "fitness" is to find something you want to do consistently. for creative people maybe think of something that excites you aesthetically. it can be kind of silly. i.e. i want a "warrior bod" so i do things with that in mind, one of these days i'm going to buy a mace and swing it around like a jackass lol. if you're more into like emotional movement and release you can do that. it doesn't have to be the gym. honestly i hate the gym but i love lifting weights, it's my dream to have my own garage gym some day. there's so much you can do at home. a lot of really good fitness and movement accounts on instagram ime, for all types of routines - worth exploring a little bit and trying a few things, something manageable that you can keep in your head and not have to track in a notebook imho. "fitness" is completely relative imo, but i do think that a regular, ideally daily practice of just getting into one's body is like really important.

My younger brother was body-smart, trained his body to “how he wanted it” by age 25 and has spent the intervening 15 years only doing “maintenance”— the briefest of daily workouts to keep himself in good shape. I hate him so much

Honestly, I just realized a little more than a year ago that I am good at climbing and wanted to train to become more consistently strong, and it's just gone from there. Now I have a whole set of routines that I do outside the gym, training that I do in the gym, and of course, I climb outdoors as much as possible. Husband and I are going on a veritable rock climbing vacation up to New Paltz for a week later in the month— just setting up anchors and climbing for a few hours every day, then hanging out and doing nothing for the rest of the time. I am absolutely stoked.

I second map's recommendation— you have to find something that you enjoy, or at least something that allows some element of enjoyment in it. One of the ways I got really into longer-distance bicycle rides (20+ miles) was getting a little JBL clip speaker so I could listen to music safely while cycling— totally changed the practice for me.

I actually recorded a podcast with two fellow "jock" poets/writers last weekend, we had an amazing conversation about how creative and movement-based practices inform one another. For me, so much about climbing is about research both intellectual and somatic, which is also very tied into how I write poetry. They're both near-spiritual practices, which sounds weird to say but alas, it's how I feel. Being outside and placing one's body on the earth, exploring its contours and meanings for me and other life, it's something else.

Yeah my older brother climbs, and I felt inspired by your posts tabes (as well as my brother’s encouragement) to investigate it. Haven’t gone yet! but I will

My sib and I were talking last night about how one can get addicted to “hate watching” and “hate reading”… I proposed that Netflix and others should have the option of turning “suggested viewing” off and turning “unrecommended viewing” on. “Did you hate that? Here are some other shows you also might hate” hahaha

the tipping point for me was starting to shoot the basketball around again, there are courts everywhere in brooklyn and it was a fun and easy way for me to get good if mild workout consistently. when it started getting too cold to play i decided i wanted to keep up the cardio/heart rate exercise so then i started doing bike/treadmill stuff at the gym. that snowballed into basic weightlifting which is where i’m at now, usually three days a week (chest/back one day, arms/shoulders, legs/core). i also picked up e-biking so i could ride around w/ my bike inclined bf & now i’m doing like idk 20-30 miles a week which on the e-bike isn’t all that strenuous, but it beats sitting on the subway. i bike home from midtown as often as i can now that the weather is good.

for me getting in better shape started with getting an office job … i think i lost 10-15 pounds of covid weight just by commuting again. we also have a gym in the office just for employees, being able to get to my gym 90 seconds after i finish work is an important component in me being consistent. if i had to go somewhere else in between the office and home on weeknights i’d skip it a lot more. my priorities have also just shifted around, if i have to spare 45 mins of working out or being at my desk right now the latter is getting cut. i show up late to trivia on wednesdays if the gym eats into my night etc this wasn’t exactly a conscious change it’s just where my mind/body are going

i think also for me it’s helped a lot that the vanity aspect of it is if not secondary than at least equal in importance to feeling healthy as i cross the other side of 35. i like feeling lighter on my feet and more athletic, i feel more stamina just walking around in my every day life. i like looking hot and it feels good to look in the mirror, but that has never been enough to really hook me into it like this. there is a mental/physical health component for me that has sorta unlocked w/ age

Yeah, same. Somewhere around 40 I really started caring about my looks. I wanted to be looked at. I lost about 30 pounds in fourteen months just by restricting my diet, eliminating inessentials, and exercising just a bit more. Now it's second nature.

yeah, that’s exactly it for me, too— do i like being mistaken for someone nearly a decade younger? yes. am i also glad that i feel mentally and physically better than i ever did a decade ago? also yes. i will be doing some sort of movement-based practice until i croak

There seems to be some correlation health and physical activity and getting up super early? All those who are saying 'fresh zen air around my head' get up at dawn, right?
And OTOH all the night owls are like "I smoke a pack of marlboros for breakfast" - did we already talk about this?

I'm in the worst shape of my life but still feel kinda hot? or maybe just "cute"

"jock" poets

yum!

i also really like being noticed. the vanity aspect is a lot of fun. i downplay it but very much relish it haha. it's motivation to keep going. it's become a part of who i am and i'm kind of used to it, i wouldn't say it's gone to my head, but i feel like i have this extra battery pack of confidence i can draw on if i need it or something (and i need it a lot because i'm not naturally a confident person). i was at an indian restaurant with friends a while ago and i ordered chicken tandoori, the waiter said 'ok, chicken for mr. muscles' :). sometimes it's annoying, like this old weird guy at the grocery store who stopped in his tracks the other week and said 'man, you're a BEAST' and i said 'mind your own business' because i'm a grumpy bitch sometimes.

damn!

yesterday at the big gay parking lot party a very inebriated younger homosexual came up to my husband and i and the first words out of his mouth were "older gays! i have so much to learn from you!" (said in apparent sincerity, albeit drunkenly)

after regaining my composure, i responded: "ok, here's the first lesson: don't use that as opening line ever again"

bam! you're welcome

how do we feel about swimming?

and / or! how do we feel about camping? i recently joined the fb group 'gay camping friends' and it's been a treat to see photos of the gays and their camping. my partner is driven crazy by insects and it drives me crazy how much it drives him crazy so we've defaulted to motels. but i still have ambitions to gear up and maybe do some solo camping.